Over the next ten years, how much do you think your values, personality and preferences will change?

It turns out that they are likely to change more than you think. When reflecting on our past, we realize that throughout our life we have significantly changed. But when thinking of the future, we tend to greatly underestimate how much we will continue to evolve. In his fascinating seven-minute TED Talk, "The psychology of your future self," Harvard professor Daniel Gilbert shares powerful research revealing this consistent miscalculation.

As I reflect on professor Gilbert’s talk, I wonder whether this "illusion that we just recently became the people that we were always meant to be and will be for the rest of our lives" leads us to be less purposeful regarding who we become. Does thinking that we won't change prevent us from directing our own change? To me, this question is especially relevant in a world in which we are often inundated with social media and other messages that redirect our attention to biased events and ideas we don't proactively seek, yet powerfully shape us. As the new year approaches, could we use professor Gilbert’s insight that "human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they're finished" to more purposefully drive our own evolution?

Over the next ten years, how much do you think your values, personality and preferences will change?

It turns out that they are likely to change more than you think. When reflecting on our past, we realize that throughout our life we have significantly changed. But when thinking of the future, we tend to greatly underestimate how much we will continue to evolve. In his fascinating seven-minute TED Talk, "The psychology of your future self," Harvard professor Daniel Gilbert shares powerful research revealing this consistent miscalculation.

As I reflect on professor Gilbert’s talk, I wonder whether this "illusion that we just recently became the people that we were always meant to be and will be for the rest of our lives" leads us to be less purposeful regarding who we become. Does thinking that we won't change prevent us from directing our own change? To me, this question is especially relevant in a world in which we are often inundated with social media and other messages that redirect our attention to biased events and ideas we don't proactively seek, yet powerfully shape us. As the new year approaches, could we use professor Gilbert’s insight that "human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they're finished" to more purposefully drive our own evolution?

I'm a scientist, and this makes me a storyteller. It's a big universe out there, and it's not enough to just describe it. We need stories, too: narrative threads to tie together the different parts of the world. A story that seems to fit well enough becomes a theory, and scientific theories are powerful enough to explain the past and tell the future. That's as close to magic as we’ll ever get.

But stories can be dangerous, especially when they aren’t true. Science has told so many stupid and harmful stories in its history: flat Earth, black and yellow bile, eugenics. And scientists disproportionately come from the smallest, luckiest section of society. How can we understand the world if there's so much of it we can't or won't see?

That's why I love Titus Kaphar's TED Talk, "Can art amend history?" Nine minutes in, he tells us something shameful about the 17th-century Frans Hals painting at the center of his talk: we know more about the lace on the white woman's dress than the life of the person next to her. I think -- and you probably do, too -- that people make better characters than fabrics. And yet we've missed out on this story until now. Titus reminds me that we need to look harder, listen better and seek out the forgotten characters. Science, history, art: these are all built on a heap of old stories. We can't forget them, but we can learn from them, and together we can move toward something more true.

I'm a scientist, and this makes me a storyteller. It's a big universe out there, and it's not enough to just describe it. We need stories, too: narrative threads to tie together the different parts of the world. A story that seems to fit well enough becomes a theory, and scientific theories are powerful enough to explain the past and tell the future. That's as close to magic as we’ll ever get.

But stories can be dangerous, especially when they aren’t true. Science has told so many stupid and harmful stories in its history: flat Earth, black and yellow bile, eugenics. And scientists disproportionately come from the smallest, luckiest section of society. How can we understand the world if there's so much of it we can't or won't see?

That's why I love Titus Kaphar's TED Talk, "Can art amend history?" Nine minutes in, he tells us something shameful about the 17th-century Frans Hals painting at the center of his talk: we know more about the lace on the white woman's dress than the life of the person next to her. I think -- and you probably do, too -- that people make better characters than fabrics. And yet we've missed out on this story until now. Titus reminds me that we need to look harder, listen better and seek out the forgotten characters. Science, history, art: these are all built on a heap of old stories. We can't forget them, but we can learn from them, and together we can move toward something more true.

This enchanting performance by the Uruguayan musician Jorge Drexler is one of the best illustrations I've ever seen of the power of music and poetry to reach us in ways and places that prose alone can't.

If you want to transmit everyday concepts to people's conscious minds, ordinary speech is a perfectly good channel -- but it's a narrow one. It soon clogs up, and it only activates our intellect. If you want to transmit wisdom, understanding and emotion, you need a fatter pipe; as the computer people say, you need more bandwidth. That's where culture comes in: it plugs you straight into the soul. You don't just inform people, you move them. You almost literally pick them up from the place they started and gently set them down somewhere new. You change them.

"Identity is infinitely dense, like an infinite series of real numbers, and even if you get very close and zoom in, it never ends," Jorge says. "Things only look pure if you look at them from far away. It's very important to know about our roots, to know where we come from, to understand our history. But at the same time, as important as knowing where we're from, is understanding that deep down, we're all from nowhere and a little bit from everywhere."

Jorge's theme -- the idea that beneath the obvious racial and cultural distinctions, we're all part of the same family -- is common throughout the TED canon and the last belief I'll ever abandon. But he comes at us through parable, poetry and song, so the message sails unchallenged straight to our hearts. It comes with the force of proof; it's as compelling as real experience. In fact, music and poetry is one really good answer to the "fake news" dilemma, because trust in the messenger comes bundled with the message. You can ignore it if you like, but you can't argue with it.

This enchanting performance by the Uruguayan musician Jorge Drexler is one of the best illustrations I've ever seen of the power of music and poetry to reach us in ways and places that prose alone can't.

If you want to transmit everyday concepts to people's conscious minds, ordinary speech is a perfectly good channel -- but it's a narrow one. It soon clogs up, and it only activates our intellect. If you want to transmit wisdom, understanding and emotion, you need a fatter pipe; as the computer people say, you need more bandwidth. That's where culture comes in: it plugs you straight into the soul. You don't just inform people, you move them. You almost literally pick them up from the place they started and gently set them down somewhere new. You change them.

"Identity is infinitely dense, like an infinite series of real numbers, and even if you get very close and zoom in, it never ends," Jorge says. "Things only look pure if you look at them from far away. It's very important to know about our roots, to know where we come from, to understand our history. But at the same time, as important as knowing where we're from, is understanding that deep down, we're all from nowhere and a little bit from everywhere."

Jorge's theme -- the idea that beneath the obvious racial and cultural distinctions, we're all part of the same family -- is common throughout the TED canon and the last belief I'll ever abandon. But he comes at us through parable, poetry and song, so the message sails unchallenged straight to our hearts. It comes with the force of proof; it's as compelling as real experience. In fact, music and poetry is one really good answer to the "fake news" dilemma, because trust in the messenger comes bundled with the message. You can ignore it if you like, but you can't argue with it.

I was thrilled to discover Kristin Poinar's TED Talk on the aquifer under the Greenland ice sheet. Poinar is part of a cohort of glaciologists and other cryospheric scientists whose work has informed my art over the last several years. Her work is integral to our global understanding of the rapid changes occurring in the landscapes I love and depict in my work. We had the chance to meet in Greenland this past Spring when we both flew over various parts of the Arctic with NASA's Operation IceBridge. Poinar discusses these very flights in her talk and shows stunning footage of the ice from the air.

The data Poinar and her colleagues have collected provides crucial information about how ice loss is occurring and what these changes mean for sea level rise. Findings from the project are alarming, and yet our global community is not responding with appropriate urgency. While the cryospheric science that Poinar studies is difficult for most of us to comprehend, her talk turns glacial melt into a problem we can all relate to. We as individuals must familiarize ourselves with the challenges facing our global communities so that we can collectively participate in solving them. Poinar emphasizes the crucial need to uncover the many mysteries that still lie inside Greenland's ice sheet so that we can better plan for the sea level rise it holds. In a time when NASA's climate research is in jeopardy, Poinar’s message is urgently needed.

I was thrilled to discover Kristin Poinar's TED Talk on the aquifer under the Greenland ice sheet. Poinar is part of a cohort of glaciologists and other cryospheric scientists whose work has informed my art over the last several years. Her work is integral to our global understanding of the rapid changes occurring in the landscapes I love and depict in my work. We had the chance to meet in Greenland this past Spring when we both flew over various parts of the Arctic with NASA's Operation IceBridge. Poinar discusses these very flights in her talk and shows stunning footage of the ice from the air.

The data Poinar and her colleagues have collected provides crucial information about how ice loss is occurring and what these changes mean for sea level rise. Findings from the project are alarming, and yet our global community is not responding with appropriate urgency. While the cryospheric science that Poinar studies is difficult for most of us to comprehend, her talk turns glacial melt into a problem we can all relate to. We as individuals must familiarize ourselves with the challenges facing our global communities so that we can collectively participate in solving them. Poinar emphasizes the crucial need to uncover the many mysteries that still lie inside Greenland's ice sheet so that we can better plan for the sea level rise it holds. In a time when NASA's climate research is in jeopardy, Poinar’s message is urgently needed.

One of the most extraordinary gifts of the human brain is the ability to think about how it thinks -- to observe itself in action. Rarely has any brain been in a better position to do this than the one belonging to neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor. On December 10, 1996, Taylor experienced a massive cerebral hemorrhage, and in her classic TED Talk, "My stroke of insight," she shares what it was like from the inside.

Although I've never suffered a stroke and hope that I never will, Taylor's talk has changed how I think about the workings of my own mind. As a science writer, I spend most days in my left brain -- where logic, linearity and a sense of self dominate. Taylor encourages us to live more in the other hemisphere, the right brain, which is where her consciousness shifted during her stroke. She describes it as a place of beauty and peace and connectedness, where the boundary between the self and the universe dissolves. She calls this state of mind "La La Land," and as she revisits that mental landscape in her talk, you can see her face soften. It's a remarkable transformation.

For me, watching Taylor's talk was a revelation. I knew immediately what she was describing because I had experienced that feeling myself. It came years ago when I witnessed a total solar eclipse, a sight so unfathomable that it overwhelmed the logic circuits in my head and left me gasping for words. It was one of the most glorious and meaningful moments of my life, but until I saw Taylor’s talk, I was baffled by what had happened inside my skull. Did I undergo a spiritual awakening? Had I encountered God? I came to realize that the eclipse pushed my consciousness into my right brain, and I now try to heed Taylor's advice and cultivate ways of returning there from time to time.

Part of what makes Taylor's talk so powerful is its unguardedness. Up on the TED stage, she opens the confines of her mind and shares what spills out with honesty and humanity. It's such effective storytelling that her talk can serve as a master class in the form. Indeed, when I recently had the good fortune to give my own talk about my passion for eclipses, I studied her example. Take the time to watch Taylor's performance and to absorb her message. You'll never think about your own brain in quite the same way again.

One of the most extraordinary gifts of the human brain is the ability to think about how it thinks -- to observe itself in action. Rarely has any brain been in a better position to do this than the one belonging to neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor. On December 10, 1996, Taylor experienced a massive cerebral hemorrhage, and in her classic TED Talk, "My stroke of insight," she shares what it was like from the inside.

Although I've never suffered a stroke and hope that I never will, Taylor's talk has changed how I think about the workings of my own mind. As a science writer, I spend most days in my left brain -- where logic, linearity and a sense of self dominate. Taylor encourages us to live more in the other hemisphere, the right brain, which is where her consciousness shifted during her stroke. She describes it as a place of beauty and peace and connectedness, where the boundary between the self and the universe dissolves. She calls this state of mind "La La Land," and as she revisits that mental landscape in her talk, you can see her face soften. It's a remarkable transformation.

For me, watching Taylor's talk was a revelation. I knew immediately what she was describing because I had experienced that feeling myself. It came years ago when I witnessed a total solar eclipse, a sight so unfathomable that it overwhelmed the logic circuits in my head and left me gasping for words. It was one of the most glorious and meaningful moments of my life, but until I saw Taylor’s talk, I was baffled by what had happened inside my skull. Did I undergo a spiritual awakening? Had I encountered God? I came to realize that the eclipse pushed my consciousness into my right brain, and I now try to heed Taylor's advice and cultivate ways of returning there from time to time.

Part of what makes Taylor's talk so powerful is its unguardedness. Up on the TED stage, she opens the confines of her mind and shares what spills out with honesty and humanity. It's such effective storytelling that her talk can serve as a master class in the form. Indeed, when I recently had the good fortune to give my own talk about my passion for eclipses, I studied her example. Take the time to watch Taylor's performance and to absorb her message. You'll never think about your own brain in quite the same way again.

In high school, I took one of those quizzes where you answer tons of questions and they tell you what career you’re best suited for. The answer I got was “artist.” This isn’t surprising, even though I’ve gone on to obtain degrees in physics and biomedical engineering. Everyday I go into lab, I’m creating something new. I close my eyes and “press play” as I visualize what processes inside our body look like. My imagination lives in the nanoscale world. I’m constantly working with things that I can’t see, trying to interpret how the human body works and create a new vision for how we treat diseases. Science is an art of its own. Research is a continuous cycle faith and failure.

Uri Alon’s TED Talk, “Why science demands a leap into the unknown,” helps me remember this. It’s a reminder that failure, creativity and improvisation are all part of the experience of being a scientist. In the moments when I get stuck in my research, this idea encourages me to improvise a little, to do something that might make me feel unprepared like taking a long walk or dance a night way. Or to say “yes, and” when I talk about my research question with another scientist. Nature is trying to tell me something, and perhaps I just need to listen.

Uri motivates how I engage with my students. I try to incorporate notions of art and improvisation into their research experience. I train them in how to think rather than how to follow instructions because I want them to prepare for the moment when their existing knowledge is no longer sufficient. And much like Uri, I hope every citizen, student, professor, politician and doctor would embrace this mentality towards science, too.

In high school, I took one of those quizzes where you answer tons of questions and they tell you what career you’re best suited for. The answer I got was “artist.” This isn’t surprising, even though I’ve gone on to obtain degrees in physics and biomedical engineering. Everyday I go into lab, I’m creating something new. I close my eyes and “press play” as I visualize what processes inside our body look like. My imagination lives in the nanoscale world. I’m constantly working with things that I can’t see, trying to interpret how the human body works and create a new vision for how we treat diseases. Science is an art of its own. Research is a continuous cycle faith and failure.

Uri Alon’s TED Talk, “Why science demands a leap into the unknown,” helps me remember this. It’s a reminder that failure, creativity and improvisation are all part of the experience of being a scientist. In the moments when I get stuck in my research, this idea encourages me to improvise a little, to do something that might make me feel unprepared like taking a long walk or dance a night way. Or to say “yes, and” when I talk about my research question with another scientist. Nature is trying to tell me something, and perhaps I just need to listen.

Uri motivates how I engage with my students. I try to incorporate notions of art and improvisation into their research experience. I train them in how to think rather than how to follow instructions because I want them to prepare for the moment when their existing knowledge is no longer sufficient. And much like Uri, I hope every citizen, student, professor, politician and doctor would embrace this mentality towards science, too.

I’m a huge fan of David Eagleman's book, Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, so it's no surprise that I found his TED Talk, "Can we create new senses for humans?" mind-bendingly enthralling. We all walk through the world thinking we know what is real. But what we see, hear, smell and feel are only a limited slice of what's actually going on around us. Our experience of reality is limited by the types of receptors we come equipped with. For example, we can't see infrared light because we don't have those kinds of receptors.

But what if we could substitute or add different kinds of receptors? Could we then perceive a different or bigger reality? David shows us that we can.

The brain is a computing device that derives meaning from patterns of input. It doesn't care where the input comes from. Blind people can see through receptors added to their tongues. Deaf people can hear through vibratory sensors on their backs. David feels the emotional content of his Twitter feed through the patterns of vibrations delivered through the vest he's wearing. In theory, there's no limit to what we can perceive --ultraviolet light, what a dog can smell, our microbiomes. It turns out, we can literally expand the human experience of reality. Like I said, mind-bending!

I’m a huge fan of David Eagleman's book, Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, so it's no surprise that I found his TED Talk, "Can we create new senses for humans?" mind-bendingly enthralling. We all walk through the world thinking we know what is real. But what we see, hear, smell and feel are only a limited slice of what's actually going on around us. Our experience of reality is limited by the types of receptors we come equipped with. For example, we can't see infrared light because we don't have those kinds of receptors.

But what if we could substitute or add different kinds of receptors? Could we then perceive a different or bigger reality? David shows us that we can.

The brain is a computing device that derives meaning from patterns of input. It doesn't care where the input comes from. Blind people can see through receptors added to their tongues. Deaf people can hear through vibratory sensors on their backs. David feels the emotional content of his Twitter feed through the patterns of vibrations delivered through the vest he's wearing. In theory, there's no limit to what we can perceive --ultraviolet light, what a dog can smell, our microbiomes. It turns out, we can literally expand the human experience of reality. Like I said, mind-bending!

As the year comes to a close and we reflect on our accomplishments and failures, let's also make room to check in on our happiness. Of course, that elicits the question: Do we even know what truly makes us happy?

Robert Waldinger is the director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, overseeing one of the most comprehensive longitudinal studies of adult development in history. He tells us what he’s learned about what makes people happy with three straightforward lessons from the 75 years of research. Here's a hint: the lessons aren't about wealth or fame or working harder. While these lessons took years of hard work to uncover, they are overwhelmingly easy to ignore.

If we heed the wisdom that Dr. Waldinger presents in his three lessons, we'll experience less loneliness, less pain in our old age, preserve our memory for years to come -- and set goals that matter for 2018 and beyond.

As the year comes to a close and we reflect on our accomplishments and failures, let's also make room to check in on our happiness. Of course, that elicits the question: Do we even know what truly makes us happy?

Robert Waldinger is the director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, overseeing one of the most comprehensive longitudinal studies of adult development in history. He tells us what he’s learned about what makes people happy with three straightforward lessons from the 75 years of research. Here's a hint: the lessons aren't about wealth or fame or working harder. While these lessons took years of hard work to uncover, they are overwhelmingly easy to ignore.

If we heed the wisdom that Dr. Waldinger presents in his three lessons, we'll experience less loneliness, less pain in our old age, preserve our memory for years to come -- and set goals that matter for 2018 and beyond.

My back was turned to the class. I drew a chair, sat, made sure the armrest and wall would give me enough cover before I grabbed some tissue paper and switched on William Kamkwamba’s "How I harnessed the wind." I knew from experience that the applause at the end of the talk would last long enough to allow m to dry my eyes before turning back to face the class.

This scenario has been repeated every year -- sometimes two or three times -- since the first time I watched William's talk many years ago. This talk represents my hope for Africa: one where Africans draw from within to generate necessary transformations, where community remains strong, and where collective progress remains the underlying motivation for all. I hold out these strong hopes, and I teach that, in Africa, leadership, research and development efforts should not be motivated by the availability of funds but by a conviction that where there is a will, there surely will be a non-dependent and dignified way.

When, in August 2017, I finally met William Kamkwamba during TEDGlobal 2017, I surprised myself: there were no tears. Just words of gratitude from my thankful heart -- a heart filled with hope and a knowing that since there has existed one William Kamkwamba from among Africans, there will be many more arising out of Africa in the coming years.

My back was turned to the class. I drew a chair, sat, made sure the armrest and wall would give me enough cover before I grabbed some tissue paper and switched on William Kamkwamba’s "How I harnessed the wind." I knew from experience that the applause at the end of the talk would last long enough to allow m to dry my eyes before turning back to face the class.

This scenario has been repeated every year -- sometimes two or three times -- since the first time I watched William's talk many years ago. This talk represents my hope for Africa: one where Africans draw from within to generate necessary transformations, where community remains strong, and where collective progress remains the underlying motivation for all. I hold out these strong hopes, and I teach that, in Africa, leadership, research and development efforts should not be motivated by the availability of funds but by a conviction that where there is a will, there surely will be a non-dependent and dignified way.

When, in August 2017, I finally met William Kamkwamba during TEDGlobal 2017, I surprised myself: there were no tears. Just words of gratitude from my thankful heart -- a heart filled with hope and a knowing that since there has existed one William Kamkwamba from among Africans, there will be many more arising out of Africa in the coming years.

In the last few years, advances in artificial intelligence have renewed hope in the capacity of technology to help improve our lives. In particular, the promise of precision healthcare -- the ability to deliver the right treatment to the right person at the right time seems ever more attainable. With enough health data, we can train algorithms to make precise medical decisions. Yet my work with the Algorithmic Justice League along with mounting research show that artificial intelligence can be biased if its creators aren't intentional about gathering inclusive data.

In her talk "His and hers ... healthcare," Dr. Paula Johnson demonstrates the perils of data collection and analysis that ignore sex differences in health care. I was surprised to learn that it wasn't until 1993 that women were required to be included in clinical trial studies funded by the US government. Even now when women are included in clinical trials, sex differences are often overlooked. By paying attention to these differences, Dr. Johnson's work advances science and medicine for both men and women. Her talk reminds us to appreciate our differences instead of ignoring them.

As we gather more data from individuals and employ artificial intelligence to make important decisions, we must continue to ask precisely: Who is benefiting? We must be intentional about inclusion. Only then can the benefits of artificial intelligence be equitably distributed within healthcare and beyond.

In the last few years, advances in artificial intelligence have renewed hope in the capacity of technology to help improve our lives. In particular, the promise of precision healthcare -- the ability to deliver the right treatment to the right person at the right time seems ever more attainable. With enough health data, we can train algorithms to make precise medical decisions. Yet my work with the Algorithmic Justice League along with mounting research show that artificial intelligence can be biased if its creators aren't intentional about gathering inclusive data.

In her talk "His and hers ... healthcare," Dr. Paula Johnson demonstrates the perils of data collection and analysis that ignore sex differences in health care. I was surprised to learn that it wasn't until 1993 that women were required to be included in clinical trial studies funded by the US government. Even now when women are included in clinical trials, sex differences are often overlooked. By paying attention to these differences, Dr. Johnson's work advances science and medicine for both men and women. Her talk reminds us to appreciate our differences instead of ignoring them.

As we gather more data from individuals and employ artificial intelligence to make important decisions, we must continue to ask precisely: Who is benefiting? We must be intentional about inclusion. Only then can the benefits of artificial intelligence be equitably distributed within healthcare and beyond.